ROBERT PIERCE

   • Leader & Times

The High Plains is home for several car shows. Among them are Liberal’s Yellow Brick Road Car Show in May, the Hooker Car Show in September and the Joe Robertson Memorial Car Show in October at Meade Lake State Park.

Now, the town of Plains wants to add to the vintage automobile exhibition with a show of its own, and this one will be a celebration of both Grand Avenue, known as the Widest Main Street in America, and the country’s 250th birthday.

July 3, Plains Community Library is hosting the Widest Main Street Car Show, and Director Celia Stauch said the idea came from a workshop she and some coworkers recently attended.

“We talked about potentially being able to do that, but there were definitely some roadblocks in place,” she said.

One of those roadblocks is harvest season, but Stauch said dry conditions this year moved harvest to an earlier point in the year. For this and other reasons, she said this year was the right time to do a car show on July 3.

“One of my workers knows quite a few workers who have older cars, classic cars, and she thought we would have a good interest of people attend,” she said. “From there, we thought more about what could be included with the car show to get people to come in and enjoy this.”

Stauch said discussions moved from just having a car show to inviting small businesses and organizations to have booths along Grand Avenue, and this led to the creation of a cornhole tournament fundraiser hosted by the Southwestern Heights Junior High football team.

“We started with a car show,” she said. “We weren’t really sure how well we’d be able to coordinate it with harvest, but with that being slow, it turned out to be a good time.”

Stauch said organizers spoke to city officials about shutting down a section of Grand Avenue, giving visitors a look at a beautiful Main Street.

“I don’t think it gets recognized enough or seen enough by people from other communities,” she said. “I also think this is a good time for people in other communities to come and visit us, see our awesome, beautiful Main Street, see the town and stay for the fireworks show later that evening.”

A library hosting a car show may seem a bit unique, but Stauch she knows of others, including one in Lakin, have done it. She added with PCL hosting this, a uniqueness is having booths lining Grand Avenue.

“It’s not just small businesses,” she said. “We have a few people coming who are in charge of school organizations that are doing their fundraising at this time. Ignite is having cotton candy and popcorn set up. The Southwestern Heights cheerleaders are coming with a dunk tank and doing temporary face tattoos.”

Plains’s Independence Day celebrations draw people from surrounding communities such as Liberal, Meade and Sublette, and she believes the car show will add to the numbers created by already established activities.

“With all three of those things and us adding something to it, my expectations are pretty high as far as the number of people coming out and enjoying the cars and the booths and the cornhole,” she said.

With bigger communities like Liberal having Fourth of July celebrations, July 3 serves as Plains’s day of celebration, and with 2026 being the 250th anniversary of America’s independence, Stauch said a car show fits well into the lineup of the community’s celebration.

“It really shifts focus back into our community, back into the people who live in this area where we’re centered at,” she said. “It’s beyond fitting that it’s happening this year at this time.”

Stauch said the car show will likewise show people what the Plains community has to offer.

“I’m really excited to give the community an extra event to have,” she said.

With this being the first edition of the Widest Main Street Car Show, Stauch said community members will be as helpful as possible in making the event possible.

“I want to make sure this event is for the community, and we’re not asking for extra help from them,” she said. “We want them to enjoy this. We want them to have fun, and we want the responsibility to fall on the library workers as much as possible.”

Stauch said July 3 will be quite a long day in Plains, but she said by the end of the day, she and her coworkers will be happy with themselves and with what they were able to give back to the community.

Stauch likewise said she is confident the Widest Main Street Car Show will have a good turnout and will add to the already great lineup of shows the area has to offer.

“Plains is pretty central to all these small towns people already travel to like Liberal, Meade Lake and Hooker,” she said. “We fit right between Meade and Liberal, so we’re just a really easily accessed location. I feel those people who participate in those other car shows would be willing to come and participate in ours. We hope that’s the case, and we can continue to do this for years, especially on the 3rd. It’s such an awesome day of celebration everyone already enjoys.”

Shows like the Yellow Brick Road Car Show have grown substantially over the years, and Stauch said she feels the Plains show will see similar growth in the future.

“I think it’ll look like we have something to offer,” she said. “As the years go on, it’ll continue to grow and grow just like small towns do.”

The Widest Main Street Car Show is scheduled to start at 4 p.m. July 3 on Grand Avenue. Stauch said those registering cars for the show need to be onsite at 3:30 p.m. that day. Registration for the cornhole tournament starts at 4 p.m., with the tournament running from 5 to 7 p.m. The show and community booths will run from 4 to 7 p.m.

Stauch said car show and booth registrations are free of charge.

“We are allowing people to set up booths for free,” she said. “We just ask they call the library so we know we have enough room, but as for the car show registration, that is completely free. That falls back to this is a public library. This is something we are trying to give back to the community. For the cornhole tournament, there’s a $30 fee per team.”

For more information, message the Plains Community Library Facebook page, call the library at 620-563-7326, or visit the library at 500 Grand Ave. in Plains from 9:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Mondays and Thursdays, from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays and Fridays and from 9:30 a.m. to noon Saturdays.

Stauch said she and her coworkers are beyond excited for July 3 in Plains.

“I know there are quite a few community members who are excited,” she said. “All the excitement is starting to pile up. It’s a lot, but we are ready, and this is something we’re determined to get done.”